Buenos Aires Plazas

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I blend in here, depending on what I wear. City residents occasionally ask me for directions and quickly switch to another passer-by when I respond in my stumbling Spanglish. This is really different and good. In many countries the skin color and clothes are a neon sign:´Tourist - Beg Here´ or ´Traveler- Sell Curios Here...´

I spend a lot of time in a few of Buenos Aires many Plaza´s - the little city parks. In fact, I picked out my apartment based on the availability of quality plazas. Plazas are important to me - they provide a relaxing setting in the midst of urban craziness - they are good places to just sit, relax and read. It is getting really hot, I can spend a full afternoon perspiring with a good book in the right plaza...

There were great plazas in Bolivia and Peru, even a few in Guatemala, but in those places I was an obvious tourist and hence a target for touts and beggars. Here I can read for hours with no interruptions.

I look for the following qualities: fenced in, large enough to get away from the roads, lots of big trees, benches, minimal signs of folks living there. The fenced in parks are closed at night and seem to be cleaner and better maintained. I walk all over but find myself going back to several: Plaza Lopez, the Botanical Garden near Plaza Italia, Plaza Int. Torcuato de Alvear (the park area just south and west of the Recoleta cemetary) and Plaza San Martin. But there are many many parks on the map I have not been to yet...

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Photos

Plaza de la Republica
Where Christmas meets the Obelisk

Plaza Rodriguez Pena
Not a place I would hang out in.